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<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="spirit_x3.tutorials.quick_start"></a><a class="link" href="quick_start.html" title="Quick Start">Quick Start</a>
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<h5>
<a name="spirit_x3.tutorials.quick_start.h0"></a>
        <span class="phrase"><a name="spirit_x3.tutorials.quick_start.why_would_you_want_to_use__emphasis_spirit_x3__emphasis__"></a></span><a class="link" href="quick_start.html#spirit_x3.tutorials.quick_start.why_would_you_want_to_use__emphasis_spirit_x3__emphasis__">Why
        would you want to use <span class="emphasis"><em>Spirit.X3</em></span>?</a>
      </h5>
<p>
        <span class="emphasis"><em>Spirit.X3</em></span> is designed to be a practical parsing tool.
        The ability to generate a fully-working parser from a formal EBNF specification
        inlined in C++ significantly reduces development time. Programmers typically
        approach parsing using ad hoc hacks with primitive tools such as scanf. Even
        regular-expression libraries (such as boost regex) or scanners (such as Boost
        tokenizer) do not scale well when we need to write more elaborate parsers.
        Attempting to write even a moderately-complex parser using these tools leads
        to code that is hard to understand and maintain.
      </p>
<p>
        One prime objective is to make the tool easy to use. When one thinks of a
        parser generator, the usual reaction is "it must be big and complex
        with a steep learning curve." Not so. Spirit is designed to be fully
        scalable. The library is structured in layers. This permits learning on an
        as-needed basis, after only learning the minimal core and basic concepts.
      </p>
<p>
        For development simplicity and ease in deployment, the entire library consists
        of only header files, with no libraries to link against or build. Just put
        the Spirit distribution in your include path, compile and run. Code size?
        -very tight -essentially comparable to hand written recursive descent code.
      </p>
<p>
        Our tutorials will walk you through the simplest Spirit examples, incrementally
        building on top of the earlier examples as we expose more and more features
        and techniques. We will try to be as gentle as possible with the learning
        curve. We will present the tutorials in a cookbook style approach. This style
        of presentation is based on our BoostCon '07 and BoostCon '08 slides.
      </p>
<p>
        Have fun!
      </p>
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<td align="right"><div class="copyright-footer">Copyright © 2001-2018 Joel de Guzman,
      Hartmut Kaiser<p>
        Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying
        file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at <a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt" target="_top">http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a>)
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